The Rev Dr Peter Mullen is a priest of the Church of England and former Rector of St Michael, Cornhill and St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London. He has written for many publications including the Wall Street Journal.

Dr Johnson was a Tory. David Cameron isn't

Twice each day we hear it said that David Cameron is hampered in his attempt to show himself as a true Tory by the fact that he has to accommodate Nick Clegg and other Liberal Democrat leading lights in the Coalition. But one look at the facts confirms that Dave is not a Conservative at all in the time-honoured meaning of that word.

Dr Johnson defined a Tory as “one who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England, opposed to a Whig which is a faction.”

No doubt most of today’s Tories – if there still are any – would want to fill out the definition a bit more and declare the duty to defend the realm against foreign enemies and to keep the peace at home. But Cameron’s policies ensure we can do neither. His defence cuts have undermined our armed forces. For a historic maritime nation such as Britain to have not a single aircraft carrier is a scandal

And if a priority for a Tory leader is to keep peace in our streets, why was the wanton savagery of last summer riots not foreseen and prevented? We were given enough warning

A Tory PM would lay a scythe to unwieldy and incompetent bureaucracy, business regulation and taxes. Cameron has increased the number of bureaucrats, left the paralysing over-regulation intact and increased taxation. So growth is stifled before it can get started.

No Tory worthy of the name would allow 50 per cent of GDP to be spent on the wasteful public sector.

One might reasonably expect secularists, trendy liberal and egalitarian socialists to favour same-sex marriages, but no true Tory would. Besides, Cameron calls himself a Christian; and the New Testament is explicit in its definition of marriage as the sacramental union of one man with one woman

Why is it that the only true Tories these days are always described as “rebel Tories” – descendants of Mr Major’s “bastards”, the awkward squad? Cameron is not a Tory. What is he then? To answer this we need look no further than the other half of Dr Johnson’s definition. Dave is a Whig, a faction.